A Q&A with Craig Crews, Founder of PITCH

Craig Crews
January 9, 2018

PITCH Points: A Q&A with Craig Crews, Yale University Lewis B. Cullman Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Pharmacology and founder of PITCH

What is the Program in Innovative Therapeutics for Connecticut’s Health (PITCH)?

PITCH is a biotech accelerator that takes research from top research labs at UConn and Yale and helps faculty generate the data packages necessary to attract outside investment for launching local biotech/biopharmas.

As the pharma industry consolidated over the past 20 years, less emphasis has been placed on internal industrial innovation and more on external innovation. One tangible impact of this reduction of internal R&D is that large pharma does not have the same bandwidth to evaluate academic opportunities internally as it once had.  Unfortunately, this has broadened the “Valley of Death” that often prevents academic science from attracting industry investment. The goal of PITCH is to carry academic projects across this gulf. We take a project from a university research lab and work on it with a team of professional drug developers at the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery (YCMD) to demonstrate a path forward – to de-risk – to mature a project to the point where now the venture community can see how they could – with the right team – be able to move this into the private sector.

Why is PITCH a collaboration between Yale and UConn?

PITCH is a state-supported initiative and there is a desire to be able to offer the venture community the ability to see a broad spectrum of opportunities– the greatest breadth of research.  The two campuses at UConn and Yale fulfill that need. One of the major strengths of UConn is its School of Pharmacy and within the school they have a strong Medicinal Chemistry faculty. My counterpart at UConn is Dennis Wright –  a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry who is also a serial entrepreneur so it is a natural collaboration.

How will PITCH have an impact on Connecticut’s Economy?

I hope that PITCH will have an impact on the local and state economy by raising the level of faculty entrepreneurial awareness and by making the startup process easier for researchers at Yale and UConn. This could have many downstream benefits for the State – not only would we ideally attract out-of-state capital to fund these projects but we will also want to retain local talent. For Yale and UConn, being surrounded by a vibrant science centric area helps in many ways including faculty recruitment and student - trainee internships.

Can you talk about what the response has been from outside investor groups you’ve brought in?

The response has been enthusiastic. We are offering the venture community an opportunity to evaluate projects in which hundreds of thousands of dollars of initial seed investment have been used by a team of skilled drug developers to mature and de-risk academic projects to the point that they are now ready for investment. By serving as a nexus of all things translational, PITCH is a one-stop shopping opportunity to see early opportunities before investors would normally see them.

*Image of Craig Crews, Photo by Tricia Bohan